(Finally) Discovering Skype

So my friend Lissa in England has been trying to convince me to get on Skype for ages. And even my Dad has been using it to chat with friends in Japan.

So why has it taken me so long to clue into the fact that Skype is a fun and FREE alternative to long distance phonecalls? I did try it a long while back but wasn't blown away. Nowadays, many computers have built-in cameras -- and being able to see the person you're talking to greatly enhances the experience.

Aren't the phone companies worried about this?

Comments

[Matt Leger]

You are right in that Skype can be a wonderful cheap way to communicate...as long as both parties (or all, in the case of a multi-person conference call) are using Skype on their computers during the call. If you need to call a land line or cell phone, then Skype charges you.

But the upside is that even when you do have to pay, you pay far less than most long-distance plans charge...especially if you are calling outside North America. My Songbird and I chat via Skype constantly because her one and only phone in Nairobi is a cell (she's prohibited from having a landline in her Embassy-leased home due to rampant service theft via line taps) and Skype only costs around 35 cents a minute. CREDO Long Distance wants 75 plus a 10-cent-per-minute surcharge for calling a cell.

Also, since Skype introduced their "Skype To Go" service, it's liberated me to use my own cell to call her, where I couldn't before because TracFone (my cell provider) only allows calls to cell phones in certain countries...of which Kenya is not one. It costs me TracFone minutes as well as Skype credit, but it's still cheaper than CREDO and more convenient than firing up the laptop.

[Tony Fabris]

Yes, they are worried, a little bit. But they're not TOO worried, because they also charge for the internet data services over which these skype transmissions are carried.

A lot of long distance phone carriers are also offering services which essentially duplicate what Skype is doing, i.e., trying to get in the same market space.

[JohnO]

Yep they are worried, VERY worried.

They tried to sue Vonage (just voice) out of existance, but underestimated how deep V's cash stream was.

[Chris C]

I use Skype, but mostly for calls to non-Skype users (few of my Skype contacts are ever online at the same time as I am). Particularly when I am in my lodgings during the week, because I don't have a landline there and mobile calls are expensive (around 10p per minute versus SkypeOut 1.2p per minute), and for international calls (typically around 4p per minute versus 10p or so per minute on landline, much higher on mobile). When I found that I could make a half hour call to Germany or America for less than the same length call inside the UK at peak times (Skype doesn't have peak and off-peak times)...

[Reid]

I got my Mom on Skype over the winter holidays. She uses it to video chat with her friend in New Zealand while they play Literati (Scrabble clone) on Yahoo games.

The video chat feature is relatively recent, but the audio use has been booming. You can now buy handset phones that allow you to call on either your land line or over the internet via Skype, and they ring when someone "phones" you over Skype.

My friend Sergey at work got a phone like this for his mother in the Ukraine. Talk about saving money on long distance bills! She doesn't have to know *anything* about using a computer to use it, either. She just calls it her "internet phone". :-)

[Chris C]

Reid: I don't have anything with a camera on it (except, oddly enough, my camera!), so I haven't done anyof the video stuff on Skype. I've seen it, though, and it looks awesome. Like your friend's mother, I tend to just use it as an "internet phone" most of the time (unlike her I do know lots about computers, but I'm still capable of just using it as an 'appliance' when that is appropriate, I don't /have/ to do everything the hard way just because I'm a geek *g*). I see nothing wrong with that. Using the "Skype phones" there is no need to even know which system it is using, especially the wireless versions. I must admit I've been a fan of Skype for many years now...